Tonight’s Nuggets game might look easy, but …

The Nuggets host the Kings tonight, and since Sacramento slapped around the Nuggets in the previous meeting, one would surmise that the inspired Nuggets will defeat the lottery bound visitors.

But let’s keep in mind that the Kings won four of their five previous road games and won last night against the Suns in Sacramento.

“This is not a bad team,” Denver coach George Karl said today. “This has got to be a defensive-minded game for us, to take some of the confidence (away) that they’ve gained over the past 4-5 games. And if we give them points from bad offense, we could be in trouble.

Wilson Chandler pointed to Denver’s defense, which has been good since the trade, but got a little relaxed of late.

“Sometimes we’ve been having defensive lapses in the fourth quarter,” Chandler said, “and in the playoffs, it’s going to be tough for us, because we’re playing good teams. We got to be a more mature team and take our possessions very serious in the game, even if we’re up 20.”

The other weird thing about tonight is that it’s the first game of a rare home-and-home set in the NBA. On Friday, in Denver’s next game, the Nuggets play at Sacramento.

“The psychology of winning back-to-back is harder than people think it is, I don’t care who you’re playing,” Karl said. “When you play a team back-to-back, there’s a psychological (situation) – the team that wins the first game, it’s hard to win the second game. And for us, we’ve got to win both games. Tonight, you go out and try to win the home court, protect what you’ve done, and then worry about the psychology for the second game.”